


give a limit take a limit

by painting



Series: c cameron miller [4]
Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-23 22:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13200285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painting/pseuds/painting
Summary: By the time he'd reached his mid-twenties, Cameron had moved halfway across the country, completed two degrees, begun utilizing his Siren voice, stopped visiting his parents for the holidays, and been properly drunk just once in his life.





	1. the party

By the time he'd reached his mid-twenties, Cameron had moved halfway across the country, completed two degrees, begun utilizing his Siren voice, stopped visiting his parents for the holidays, and been properly drunk just once in his life.

Even then, it was hardly the sort of messy, stumbling, can't-think-straight sort of experience that he'd seen in movies, and it wasn't at a bar or a house party like it should have been. He'd attended plenty of those when he first moved away, especially during the first few years, but despite him matching the pace of his peers, something about Cameron's metabolism didn't seem to process alcohol the way it was supposed to. Its effects were lost on him until a dozen drinks in, after which he tended to either stop due to a feeling of overindulgence or simply fall asleep on the host's couch.

And because Cameron was physically on the smaller side of average, he had a feeling that it had something to do with his heritage. He could never find anything online about Sirens and alcohol tolerance, though — at least not anything useful — and his parents clammed up when he tried to talk to them about anything to do with that side of his family at all.

So he accepted it for what it was and helped himself to a fourth glass of amethyst-infused wine, later and otherwise known as miracle mistake wine, at a political banquet that his research team had been invited to when Cameron was just barely a semester into grad school. It was meant to be good networking in hopes that they'd make an impression and later be approved for a grant, but Cameron's night to-date had consisted mostly of rotating seats near the bar and trying to guess which rich socialite was going to order what.

He didn't realize that the drinks were doing the trick until a few minutes after Ronnie Chao interrupted his guessing game and broke the dam.

"Not your night for a stiff drink?" Ronnie had asked in greeting, gesturing with his free hand toward the bottle of wine Cameron had just poured from.

"Maybe just some of yours," Cameron answered quickly, his words tumbling out almost too fast for his mouth to catch. Ronnie was swirling a dark liquor in his glass like a movie villain and not offering Cameron a sip. "Who'd you meet so far? Anyone good?"

Ronnie breathed in through his teeth. "Between us? Bunch of duds," he said as he surveyed the ballroom. There was a sculpture made out of phoenix ice on display right in the center, and it had been slowly melting and then re-forming itself all night long in full-figured shapes of the various honored guests in attendance. Cameron had been keeping track of the names and faces on display, and for the entire hour and a half since he'd arrived, there had been no repeats.

"I had a feeling they would be," Cameron said.

"But you were so excited to come to this thing."

" _I_ was?"

"Yeah," Ronnie said easily. He had that kind of soft, velvet-raspy butterscotch voice that reminded Cameron of an actor from _General Hospital_ that he'd had an insatiable crush on during middle school. "I heard you bring it up twice last week."

Cameron and Ronnie saw each other every day. They were technically working on different projects under the same supervisor, which didn't exactly make them partners, but it did mean that they shared a workspace. While a lot of the others filtered in and out, both Cameron and Ronnie were stationed in the building on work study and found plenty of time to chat in between grading undergraduate essays that none of their superiors had any time to deal with.

"I didn't realize! I just thought they'd be boring in a funny way," Cameron explained. "But it turns out they're mostly boring in a boring way. Everyone orders a gin and tonic."

"I think you might be the only person I've ever met who would look forward to being around boring people," Ronnie said.

Cameron inelegantly swallowed the biggest, sweetest, richest mouthful of wine he'd ever tasted as he considered Ronnie's observation.

"They're a lot of fun because you can't predict a pattern or anything. They all have these weird, dumb idiosyncrasies," Cameron said. " _Not_ that I think people are collectively lab rats or video game characters or replaceable machine cogs… But it's fun to see that someone is the kind of person who follows a really impressive mold to success and gets anxiety from people noticing anything different about them, and then find out that they also eat the entire popcorn shrimp pieces when they go to a seafood buffet, tails and all."

"The tails?" Ronnie repeated.

"Just an example. People are really weird and different. I wonder if, um…" Cameron swiveled in his chair to get a better look at the transforming sculpture and read the temporary name stamped below it. "If _Michele St. Angel_ eats the tails."

When he turned back around, Cameron's head spun, but at that moment he felt like his world was going to implode if he didn't find Michele St. Angel and speak to him in depth about his popcorn shrimp habits immediately. Paying it little mind must have been a mistake, because when Cameron stood up to go and find him, the ground shifted and he stumbled forward. 

"Whoa." Ronnie was on top of it right away, slouching to meet Cameron's eyes and hold onto his arms even though Cameron had quickly steadied himself. "You okay?"

The dizzy spell vanished as quickly as it came. Cameron was just as steady on his feet as ever, so he said, "I think so. I don't know what that was."

Very gently, Ronnie maneuvered Cameron back down into his chair.

"Must've stood up too fast," Ronnie deduced. "Uh, where were you going?"

Cameron felt like the floor was pulled out from under him, metaphorically that time.

"I really don't remember," he admitted. "I think I just spaced out. Sorry. I don't know. What were we talking about?"

"Jeez," Ronnie said, and he sounded a little shaky but he followed Cameron's lead anyway. "We, uh, we were talking about the phoenix ice statue."

"Yes," was all Cameron could come up with in response. He was starting to worry that something might be acutely wrong with his brain, and to add to his unease, Cameron could not think of a single condition to place the blame on.

Ronnie continued, looking a little more concerned. "Did you see those little gold boxes at the bottom surrounding it? I heard that there's some kind of relic in each one of them that they're gonna give to all the research teams who win grants. I'm dying to see what's inside."

"Like a Kinder surprise egg," Cameron said, and then everything came right back to him, refreshing and relieving and perfect like a splash of cold water. "Oh my god, eggshell. _Mi_ chele. Shrimp shell. Geronimo, I'm fine now. Okay? I'll be right back."

Ronnie wasn't fast enough to stop him or even reprimand Cameron for using his full name. Though, to be fair, Cameron had yet to find out whether Ronnie hated to be called "Geronimo" or simply preferred a more conventional nickname for its easiness. Either way, the situation felt dire enough for Cameron to resort to that kind of formality.

He wasn't so lightheaded as he re-entered the crowd, and Cameron kept his posture straight and his pace even in order to blend in better with the politicians and their friends as he scanned the room for St. Angel's familiar face. The guest list seemed to consist mostly of humans and elves, and they were all dressed the same. Cameron tried to memorize as many faces as possible as he continued on his quest, and he didn't mind the eye contact like he usually would; that night, he smiled confidently and nodded every time it happened, instead of tightening his jaw and jerkily looking away.

It felt great. He wanted to talk to everyone.

And not in the regular, abstract way that Cameron normally experienced, where his curiosity had him yearning for conversations with strangers but his nervousness kept him from being the first one to say hello. Instead he was feeling that curiosity bubble up to his brim, pushing him to speak to anyone available and find out everything there was to know about them. It felt like a physical need, almost, and he didn't have any inhibitions about satisfying it.

"What a wonderful night. Look at that view, doesn't it look amazing? Stunning?" he asked the first solitary person he found, gesturing to the room's big window-wall and its subsequent view of the river and Capitol building. There might have been a patio out there, too, but it was too cold for anyone to go and find out.

"It does!" agreed his new acquaintance, a slender man with a beard and friendly downturned eyes. "Is this your first time in the building?"

" _Yes_ ," Cameron disclosed. His head felt clear and he never, ever wanted to stop talking. "Oh yes. I'm a student, so I'm not a regular at places like this. I can't believe all the money in this room. Is it your first time? It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise, son! I'm James Walsh," said Cameron's new best friend James Walsh. "What are you studying?"

And god, what a question that was. Cameron started to explain their research pitch to James Walsh, words flowing out of him smooth as gravy. No stammering, no word fillers, no pausing and backtracking and correcting his phrasing because his mind was going too fast for his face. Everything was in sync and his instructors would have been so proud of him. If only he'd been broadcasting the entire thing on a body camera.

After a few minutes of talking archive restoration, Cameron found out that James Walsh thought he was eighteen or nineteen instead of twenty-three, and then he reassured him that he was just as impressed with his spiel as he would have been if Cameron were younger. Next, he told Cameron he had a baby face and said he'd appreciate it when he was James Walsh's age, because James was nearing fifty but wrinkled enough to look at least fifty-five.

Cameron forgot to talk about the grant or even find out who the hell James Walsh was and whether or not he was important, but that didn't matter because he'd just had the loveliest time in the world and he didn't even worry about being inappropriate when he confessed that he thought wrinkles looked cool. James Walsh seemed to know what he meant, because Cameron connected with him just like he was going to connect with the next lonely person he found, no matter who the lucky soul would happen to be.

As it turned out, someone stole Cameron away before he'd had the chance to play the approaching game, and he forgot about James Walsh instantly.

"Hi, I couldn't help overhearing," said his new- _new_ best friend, a tall woman with red hair and a voice like a cartoon character. "You're working on the shapeshifter renaissance project? Sorry — I'm Senator Bones."

She stuck out her hand, which was incredibly soft and warm when Cameron shook it. Long nails, too.

" _Yes_ , Senator! Actually, sort of. Not really. I'm sorry if I was maybe unclear before," Cameron said. Very fleetingly, he wondered if he had lied to James Walsh. He couldn't remember. "I'm interested in the renaissance, so I've done a lot of independent research, but I'm employed with another project right now."

Senator Bones didn't seem perturbed by the misinformation. Cameron loved her. He loved that her name was Senator Bones.

"What are you working on?" she asked.

"Right now we're mostly creating data on race and supernatural immigration," Cameron recited. "Combing through letters, diaries, things like that. We want to digitize those and create visualizations so we can do academic analyses in different colleges like psych and geology. I found some shapeshifter overlap recently, though…"

That was probably where it had come from. He must have been telling James Walsh about the news articles he found the week before. Mystery solved. Perfect. God. He really was brilliant after all. The busy atmosphere must have been vitalizing his genius mind.

Senator Bones told Cameron how interesting his work sounded, and her tone made it come across like she meant it. Cameron knew all about what politicians were like, but he and Senator Bones were very close, so he knew she wasn't messing around and playing him for a fool. He loved her. Her name was Senator Bones and she had the highest, fluffiest voice Cameron had ever heard. How could someone like that ever be insincere?

"I didn't catch your name before!" she said after another couple minutes, signaling that she was through with him and Cameron was soon to be on to his next frontier.

"It is so nice of you," Cameron said, "to let me save face after being so rude when we first met. I didn't tell you my name before because I got excited to talk about shapeshifters. I'm Cameron Miller."

Senator Bones smiled and said, "Well, I did bring up shapeshifters before introducing _my_ self, so I must have set a bad example! It was really nice meeting you, Cameron. Let's keep in touch."

Cameron hoped he would remember to give her a call. He wanted to write it down so he wouldn't forget, or go and tell Ronnie so he'd have the information and remind Cameron on Monday. He ended up not doing either.

As he walked away from Senator Bones, Cameron passed the phoenix ice statue and swiftly pocketed one of the gold boxes Ronnie had told him about.

He did another lap and met three more politicians, then he swiped a second gold box on his way back around.

At that point, Cameron had two pockets and two gold boxes, which meant he was at capacity. He needed to find Ronnie so he could unload, and then return back to the scene of the crime to finish the job. He figured that if he took three grants' worth of boxes, he could either sell them and reap the rewards for the sake of his team, or hold them ransom until the board chose them and gave them three grants. He felt the sharp corner of one of the boxes through his pocket and he hoped it wouldn't pierce the fabric of his suit.

He talked to a politician's husband. Then he stared at Capitol Hill out the window. Then he talked to one of the caterers. Then he went to find another glass of wine and found Ronnie instead.

"You looked like you were having fun," Ronnie said. He was holding a new glass of whatever he'd been drinking before that Cameron still hadn't tried.

"Oh my god, I think this is the best party I've ever been to," Cameron said. He gestured to the ballroom. "Everyone's here."

Ronnie's face softened, then he laughed.

"Oh no," he said. He set his glass down and reached for Cameron's, and Cameron obediently let go right away. "Oh no, man, you are toasted. I don't know how I didn't notice it before. Ooh. Oh no, Cameron…"

"What are you talking about?" Cameron asked as he stared at Ronnie's huge, tanned hand and how it was holding the wine glass by the brim. "How can you tell?"

"First of all," Ronnie said as he set Cameron's glass on a table, "you are just so, so incredibly pink. I don't think I'd notice it if I didn't know that you normally didn't look pink like that, but you look like you just ran a couple laps, for real."

"I didn't," Cameron swore.

"I know. Plus your speech is also a little… I dunno, it's off. You're talking a lot faster than usual. But you aren't slurring or falling over, so I didn't catch it."

Cameron's beautiful alcohol-brain put two and two together, and he said, "That's what was going on before," in hopes that Ronnie would know what he meant by _before_.

"Yeah." Thank god. "How much have you had?"

Cameron took a deep breath and cast a passionate look toward the forbidden wine. "That was my fifth."

"Dude," Ronnie said. "We've been here for maybe two hours. I'm barely on my second. You're not pacing yourself?"

Cameron lowered his voice and said, "I've never been drunk before."

"What?" Ronnie asked. "How."

"I dunno," Cameron said. Everything was starting to make a lot more sense, but he kind of liked however he was feeling, so instead of getting embarrassed about being inebriated at a very formal event that was important to his career, he just became sort of bummed that he couldn't feel like that whenever he wanted to, like a normal person. "I have a weird, broken body and I've had ten drinks in a night before and barely gotten buzzed, so I just thought it couldn't happen. I dunno."

Ronnie picked up Cameron's wine and took a sip.

"This is _not_ normal wine, dude," he said. "Have you been drinking the gem water elixir or whatever? Where they grind up the diamonds and shit and mix it into fruit wine?" 

"The label said amethyst wine," Cameron recalled.

"I think, uh…" Ronnie set the glass back down. "I don't know, I'm not a doctor or a bartender, but it's probably reacting weird because you aren't all-human. You've got some extra stuff. This drink is supposed to just be useless and extra if you're a rich human person, or an elf _probably_ , but for someone like you…"

"Oh my god, isn't that unfortunate? I can't get drunk unless it's off of something only millionaires can get. That sucks."

"Sorry to break it to you. Are you okay, though? How are you feeling?"

"I feel amazing," Cameron sulked. "Wow. I'll miss this."

"Yeah, I bet."

There was nothing more sobering than bad news, Cameron realized. He decided to vacate his pockets in hopes that it might make him start to feel better.

"Okay, whatever. Enough of that, Ronnie, look." Cameron turned so his back was facing the party and his front was facing the table at the edge of the wall. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out the prize.

Ronnie held out his hand and Cameron dropped the box in his palm, then reached into his other pocket and pulled out the second one so they could open them together.

"Seriously?" Ronnie said. "You stole it? They're gonna notice."

"Big deal," Cameron replied.

"Why do you say 'big deal' to stealing something expensive from a government party when you almost had a panic attack _yesterday_ about bringing me the wrong kind of sandwich for lunch?"

Cameron ignored him and went ahead and opened his gold box.

"Oh my god. This is so hideous," he said happily. Inside was an opal figurine that had been carved to look like a macrame newsboy, only its limbs were made of dark cherry wood and it had four legs instead of two. Cameron was just as in love with it drunk as he would have been sober.

"Holy shit," Ronnie said as he beheld its magnificence. "It kind of looks like you."

"You're the second person to tell me something like that tonight."

"Not that you're hideous or anything," Robbie backtracked. "Obviously. You're just kind of a newsboy. Anyway, check mine out." Robbie held up a similar figurine, also carved opal, but it was shaped like a giraffe with a bear's head. Like the newsboy, its legs were all wooden. It had three tails.

"Oh my god," Cameron said. "Oh my god. I love them. Do you think this was on purpose, or do rich people just have horrible taste? Whatever. I don't care. I love them."

"Even if we don't end up getting any grants after we give them back, I'm happy I got to see what was inside," Ronnie agreed, pressing his thumb on top of his glorious and perfect giraffe-bear's head.

"I'm actually going to die if we have to give them back," Cameron said. He really felt like it was the truth. "There's just no way."

Ronnie looked at him fondly and then put his figurine back in its gold box home and closed the lid. It was the saddest thing Cameron had ever experienced in his life.

"We're in enough potential trouble with them on us right now. It's going to be tricky putting them back," Ronnie said. "Maybe you could act like you just found them somewhere because someone else stole them. You'd look like a hero."

"What if they checked for prints? You're the only other one whose hands have been on them tonight," Cameron said. "Do you think they'd check for prints? We got here too late for me to see who was setting them down around the ice. I bet they were wearing gloves. It's fine. It was really easy to take them, so I can just put them back the same way. I barely had to think about it."

"You sure? It's a lot easier to take things out of your pockets than it is to put them in," Ronnie reminded him.

Cameron was through with talking about it. "I guess. You have a great voice," he said abruptly. "Really husky and soothing."

"Ooh, while we were talking I forgot you were hammered. You're really articulate for a drunk person."

Cameron shook his head. "I'm not hitting on you or anything," he said. "Or even looking at you with beer goggles. I was thinking it before. I just had to tell you because I just had to tell you."

"You just had to tell me because you…?"

"Yeah."

Ronnie smiled. "Well. Thanks. And also thanks for showing me the boxes, captain maverick."

"I wouldn't have known about them if you hadn't told me." Cameron took Ronnie's giraffe-bear's golden jail and put it back in his pocket before doing the same with his own little box. It sucked and he hated it. "Okay. I'm going." 

And back he went into the crowd of suits and gowns, his sullen mood fleeting as he decided not to go through with the exchange and keep the figurines after all. He felt bad lying to Robbie, but Cameron could put the solid macrame newsboy on his desk on Monday to make up for it. The peace offering would remind Robbie of him every time he saw it.

Cameron's satisfaction with his new plan lasted for about thirty seconds — or maybe it was something like five minutes — he wasn't finding it easy to keep track of time — after which he was pulled aside by an unfamiliar man with huge hands that rested warm and heavy on Cameron's shoulders.

"Hi, son," he said in the phoniest politician voice on earth. Cameron had thought at first that he might have been on a security team or something, but the tone this man was using easily erased all doubts of him being an esteemed guest.

Cameron exhaled and said, "Hey."

"I noticed you carrying around a couple of grant prizes," the man told Cameron, in that ugly threatening way that was meant to look friendly and jovial. "But the—"

"You cut right to the chase!" Cameron commented before he could help it. It had meant to be more of an enthusiastic observation than a criticism. "Uh, sorry."

His interruption didn't seem to phase the guy, whose only reaction was to take his own hands back and adjust his watch, which only made Cameron realize how much he wanted to take it. It was one of those kinds with an onyx crown and a colorful, tropical image on its face. It looked snug on his wrist and clashed wonderfully with his patterned brown suit. It must have been a gift.

"…The grants aren't scheduled to be awarded until next week," he finished.

He seemed to want to play a game, so Cameron tried to match him.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"I'm on the board," the man told him. "Which means I also have a pretty hefty amount of influence when it comes to grant selection. I like to think of _theft_ as an automatic disqualifier; wouldn't you say that was fair?"

"Oh, no-no-no," Cameron said quickly. "I was only, um. Hm. Oh god. Hmm. Okay. Jesus. Okay. This looks so bad for me."

"Certainly does, son," said the damn board member. Oh, god.

It felt like they were at a halfway point in their game, and the cool-watch board member was looking satisfied with himself, like he had Cameron right where he wanted him after cornering him to confess. To be fair, he sort of did, and Cameron also definitely stole those items, but that wasn't important to him in that moment. All Cameron could think about was how annoying it was to be addressed as though he were a child, and how much he hated being expected to comply with such a sinister trick.

He willed himself not to panic and began to reply.

"Actually, I…" Please work please work please work, Cameron thought to himself as he pulled his voice up and focused his energy in his chest. It was a lot harder to concentrate with his mind excited and loose like it was. " _I_ was taking them for the team. I was taking what my team deserved. Representatively. I was staying… ahead… of the game."

"Ahead of the game?" the man asked. His eyes shone genuine, and his camera-ready eyebrows dropped.

"Yeah," Cameron said. Good sign. He felt the magic sputtering out of him, hot and light and uneven and effective. Good, good, good. "It was so clear to me… and to everyone I spoke with tonight… that my project was going to win one of the grants. Maybe two. Have I told you our proposal?"

"I haven't had the pleasure," responded Cameron's newest friend.

"Okay," Cameron said. "You'll see what I mean."

Cameron felt his second voice fading more and more as he continued to speak, which was honestly a relief because it had proven incredibly difficult to think, talk, and use his magic at the same time, especially with his focus low and the anxiety that came with practicing an ability he hadn't even begun to master. The alcohol's effects were, thankfully, relaxing enough for the latter to be less of an issue than it usually was.

Either way, it didn't matter that he'd only been able to put on a charm for a handful of sentences because it had done its trick; the board member — who soon enough told Cameron that his name was Bradford Ymo — was hanging on his every word and agreeing with all that Cameron had to say about how incredible his research team was and how wonderful it would be if they won the grant money.

Big deal if Sober Cameron might have thought it was unethical. One look at the triple-tailed giraffe-bear would have him forgetting all about the difference between right and wrong.

Once the conversation began to move away from research and more toward the realm of small talk, Cameron began to push for a guarantee, in writing, that Bradford would recommend his project to the other board members with esteem. He still felt almost like sparkles were flying out of his mouth, though at that point he was sure it was more due to the drug than his Siren magic. His enthusiasm was hard to manage, but Bradford was loving it enough to hand his phone over to Cameron with trust that he'd compose an email to the board that best honored his research team post-haste.

Cameron found that, for what was most definitely the first time in his life, he was a lot better than speaking than at typing.

His thumbs were misaligned with the keyboard on matter what he did, and Bradford's unfamiliar autocorrect wasn't much help. _Dear colleagues_ became _Dear coats_ , and _digital collaboration_ turned into _dishwater collaboration_ , and then into _die yeah company_ , the latter of which Cameron wished he could keep in the letter, before he figured out how to correct it. He let Bradford talk at him about taking advantage of student access to the gym while Cameron chiseled away at the email for what felt like at least forty five minutes, despite the clock telling him it only took eight.

Eventually, though, he was sure that he'd gotten it right, and he pressed the phone back into Bradford's giant hand for his approval.

"You're an impressive writer," Bradford said. "No errors. Distinct understanding of our lexicon."

"It's not my first time impersonating someone over text," Cameron said humbly, just a moment before he realized how dicey it was to admit something like that to an authority figure.

"Well, you do a fine job of it." Bradford tapped the upper right corner of his phone and then tapped it again. "I've just sent your message to the board; I wouldn't worry about missing out on either of the grants you've applied for." Then he did this perfect wink, the fast kind, where the side of his mouth quirked up very, very slightly. "I'm going to forward you a copy of the email for your records. Would you mind typing in your address?"

Cameron didn't freak out at the prospect of having to type something again, and he fought the muscle memory he had of typing his email with his own phone constantly as he entered his information into Bradford's phone.

"Let's stay in touch," he said clearly as he handed the phone back a second time. His vision blurred a little. Hopefully Bradford would pick up on the code — what he was really saying was, _I'm over this conversation._ _Can you get lost?_

"I'll hold you to that," Bradford promised.

With a friendly wave, Cameron hurried off, hoping he could ditch the party before his spell on board-member-Bradford wore off. He got distracted by the harpist, who was able to change the material on her instrument's strings as she played. It was hypnotizing watching them transform in front of his eyes and hearing the accompanying versatility in her song. He couldn't help nodding his head and twitching his fingers to the rhythm.

He wanted to dance so badly, or maybe sing, if it wouldn't have turned the party into a disaster. Whatever. Maybe once he figured out what his deal was, Cameron thought, he could market himself as a novelty singer, the kind who could make the audience feel all sorts of things just by listening to him. He could charm them into excitement or contentment or whatever the collective mood of the party was supposed to be. That way he'd get to use his power without having to worry about the millions of ethical issues his parents had told him were bound to come along with it.

He stood there watching and brainstorming ideas until the harpist's song sped up and Ronnie tapped him on the shoulder.

Instinctively, Cameron grabbed Ronnie's hand, lifted his arm, and spun him around. Ronnie almost tripped over his own feet, but he didn't fall. Cameron was careful not to snap Ronnie too close when he pulled him in to end the twirl.

"Uh," Ronnie said.

"Sorry! Jesus, okay, sorry. I forgot you weren't ready," Cameron said as he let go.

"You just twirled me."

"Did you like it?"

"Yeah, kinda," Ronnie admitted. He was smiling with his whole face, eyes crinkling. "Why did you…?"

"This song is just amazing," Cameron told him. "I think it's the best song that's ever been composed in the history of the northern hemisphere."

Ronnie lead Cameron further away from the harp and back into the crowd. "How are you so coordinated when you're drunk? You're really drunk."

"Yeah, I know. I have to go soon," Cameron said. He spotted the dance crowd, in the center of the room away from the windows, and headed in that direction.

"Are you okay?" Ronnie asked.

"Oh yeah," Cameron confirmed. "I just... Oh, I'll tell you in a second, will you dance with me? Promise I won't drop you."

"I'm taller than you are," Ronnie said, but he wasn't really protesting. He hurriedly followed Cameron right to the polished wood of the dance floor.

"It's okay. I'm a great lead." Cameron held out his hand and Ronnie took it, then the both of them proceeded to tango.

It took them a second to get the hang of it, probably because freeform was tricky and Ronnie wasn't used to following, but they fell into the rhythm of the song quickly. It was some sort of partially-percussive rendition of that song from the opera called "Carmen" — the one with a familiar melody and unfamiliar name. Cameron wanted to hum along, but even in his drunken state, he knew better.

"Okay, so I wanted to," Cameron paused for a beat as he twirled Ronnie again, "tell you about how I am not going to return those boxes. Because…"

"Cameron, you have to."

"You didn't let me finish! You're not gonna believe this." In sync, they stepped forward, forward again, and to the side. He adjusted both boxes in his pocket so they'd quit poking him. " _We_ get to keep them because I got us both grants just now."

Ronnie stopped for just a second. "What? No way."

"Yes, Geronimo." Cameron saved the dance with some footwork between Ronnie's ankles before Ronnie got back in step. "I talked to this board member. He didn't even make me return the gifts until it was approved."

In his excitement for his new opal macrame darling, Cameron pulled Ronnie closer and spun them both, then swung Ronnie back and close again.

"Holy shit. Way to go," Ronnie praised as they backed up.

"I know! But that's why I have to leave soon. The guy I talked to sent an email to the board and I…" Cameron didn't want to get into the SIren song thing, at least not in the dance floor, so he made something up on the spot. "I don't know if it followed protocol or not, so I don't want to stick around in case there's any fallout. I've got to leave after this song for sure."

"Oh yeah. That makes sense." Robbie kicked his foot a little as Cameron maneuvered his own feet and circled around him, then took his hand to lead him more toward the edge of the dance floor. "Dude, you are such a good dancer."

Cameron was flattered, so he said, "You too. Did you learn in New York?"

"Yeah," Ronnie said shortly, distracted. "Seriously, I can't believe you. I didn't know you were practically an acrobat."

"I practiced a lot." He lead Ronnie to the left-right-left and then lifted his arm and twirled again. "Here, switch. You lead now."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"The song hasn't even ended—"

Cameron kicked up one of his legs and put his arm around Ronnie's shoulder. Ronnie reacted quickly and lifted him up.

"Yes!" Cameron cheered. Ronnie spun once and set him back down, and Cameron stepped over and around Ronnie's feet until he was behind him. Ronnie turned around, taking Cameron's hands and resuming his position just as the harpist's final note sounded and she transitioned into the next song.

"I'd love to see you dance sober," Ronnie said as he headed for the carpeted, non-dancing section of the party. "Unless you're one of those people who can only dance drunk because of lowered inhibitions. I'm not exactly sure how it—"

"Where are you going?" Cameron asked.

"You said you had to split."

"Oh. That's right." Jesus. "Yeah, I…"

"Probably for the best," Ronnie determined as Cameron followed him off of the dance floor and off toward the coatroom. Cameron wanted to say goodbye to Senator Bones before leaving, but he couldn't find her with a quick scan of the room, so she might as well have vanished out of thin air. "You don't have far to go, right?"

"The train coming in was about forty minutes. Right over the river," Cameron recalled as he walked past Ronnie into the giant closet. "So maybe just four miles. I could even walk."

" _Don't_ walk," Ronnie suggested. "Are you going to be okay getting home? You seem a little… confused."

"Oh yeah." Cameron started to leaf through the dozens of hangers against one of the walls. His coat was grey, and so were most of the others. He had no doubts that at least one of the politicians there was his size and wore a similar grey wool coat to the event, which he was almost definitely going to end up grabbing by mistake. Then he'd have to track the owner down and he'd probably try and compare pockets with them because that was exactly the kind of thing Cameron would bring up. He couldn't even remember what he'd been carrying in his coat pockets when he showed up to the event. It could have definitely been something embarrassing, and the other men's size small grey coat haver was not going to be impressed. "Oh no. How am I going to know which one is… Uh, which one is mine…? Ronnie."

"Here," Ronnie said, and he was holding a slip of paper that he seemed to have conjured out of nowhere. "You have one of these, too. It'll have a number on it and you just match it with your hanger."

Cameron watched Ronnie head to the opposite corner of the coat room and pluck a scarf and jacket off of the rod there. Cameron reached into the pocket of his pants and found his own receipt.

"Oh thank god. Okay," he said, then followed Ronnie's instructions and quickly located what was his. Once he put it on, the first thing he did was check the pockets. "Why did you get your stuff too?"

"I'm driving you home," Ronnie told him.

"Are you sure?" Cameron asked. His pockets were empty.

"We already got the grants, right?" Ronnie said. He grinned in a way that was very sweet and very sideways. "So… mission accomplished. No big reason for me to stay, either. And you seem… Um, I just think it'd be safer for me to take you back myself. It's not out of my way or anything."

Cameron wasn't generally one to refuse help for something like this, and he anticipated that the drive back would take a quarter of the time that he'd have to spend on the train. He still felt as free as even, but his energy from before was beginning to fade quickly, a predictable burnout after dancing the tango with Ronnie. He adjusted his sleeves and said, "Thank you. I'm so excited to see your car."

"It's nothing special," Ronnie dismissed as they exited the room.

Cameron begged to differ. Before he'd even gotten a chance to give Ronnie directions to his apartment, he was out cold in the passenger seat and homeward bound nonetheless.


	2. the apartment

Cameron woke up anticipating the mother of all tension headaches, and he was almost disappointed when he realized that the universe had, instead, gifted to him a sore throat and a pressurized feeling in his sinuses. The feeling of missed experiences only became amplified as he began to recall the previous night's events, so barefaced in his memory that he may as well have never been drunk at all. 

He'd never felt more ripped off, but he figured it wasn't quite time yet to count all of his many woes.

He stuck his hand straight up in the air and wiggled his fingers before he even opened his eyes, because, on the contrary, waking up on a couch he'd never met before was not something that had ever been lost on him. Waving at anyone who might be on the other side of the couch was always Cameron's first move in that kind of situation; it let the host know that he was awake, aware of what was going on, and not planning on overstaying his welcome. Even better, it gave him a few extra moments to rest before he'd have to stand up and talk to anybody.

"Ron _nie!_ " called a voice Cameron had never heard, in a volume that made him grateful to have avoided that tension headache after all. "Your baby's awake! Hey," they said, their voice soft and close enough on the last word for Cameron to know that it'd been directed at him.

Cameron opened his eyes just to see a young woman round the corner and lean against the opposite edge of the couch near his feet.

"Hi," he said as he sat up, years past the point of morning self-consciousness. His eyes were probably a little puffy.

"I'm Ronnie's cousin, Gina," said the woman. She had a warm smile and the strongest Jersey accent Cameron had ever heard. "You sleep okay? You were out cold. I was cooking and everything, didn't even wake you up."

That was something Cameron liked about crashing at someone else's apartment; it was always so clear whether he was putting them out or not. Usually, they went about their normal routine the next morning, taking no precautions to tiptoe around him or otherwise keep from disturbing his sleep. The casual domesticity between strangers was something he'd miss once he got a little older and that kind of thing would become less acceptable.

"It'd be okay if you did," Cameron told her, "since you live here. But I could probably sleep through a tsunami if it came through in the middle of the night."

Gina's warm, close-lipped smile grew until her teeth were showing. She pushed herself back off the arm of the couch.

"Aw, Ronnie said you were a sweetheart," she said. Cameron was suddenly convinced that the word _sweetheart_ was created to be said solely by people from Jersey and absolutely nobody else. "I told him it takes one to know one. Ronnie's the sweetest cousin I got."

In perceived response, Ronnie's footsteps sounded just before his voice did.

"Better not be talking shit about me, Gina," he said, the softness of his tone contrasting with the threat of his words. When he emerged from down a strange hallway, Cameron saw that he was still wearing pajamas.

"Oh, I am," Gina assured him. She turned around and crossed her arms. Cameron looked over the couch to see that it was right at the edge of the living room with Ronnie and Gina's kitchen on the other side, looking pristine and full of shiny appliances. He wondered what part of town he was in. "I'm tellin' your baby all about how you—"

"Oh my god, ah. Ah. Don't call him that," protested Ronnie as he ladeled something from the stove into a ceramic bowl. He looked over his shoulder at Cameron and said, "She calls everyone that. It's not just you."

"Yeah it is!" Gina sat on an armchair in the living room and looked right into Cameron's eyes. "I'm calling you that because when Ronnie first mentioned you to me, he described you as having a baby face."

"Don't tell him about—!"

"It's okay," Cameron said as Ronnie entered the living room. "I've heard it be…" And there went his voice. Cameron cleared his throat and tried again. "Heard it before, sorry."

"How you feeling?" Ronnie shifted his gaze from Cameron to the bowl as he handed it over. "Here. That's for you. Breakfast."

"What is it?" Cameron asked, taking the bowl into his hands and then eating a spoonful before he got the answer. He looked down for the first time and saw not only that his dress shirt had been wrinkled into a nearly-unrecognizable chaos garment, but also that the blanket he'd been sleeping under was patterned to look like a Turkish rug. The rest of the furniture in the room was simplistic and blocky, which lead him to believe that the blanket was meant to be the focal point of the room. He'd never felt so honored.

"Almond polenta," Ronnie said. He sat down in the other armchair and crossed his legs.

Cameron took another bite. The texture was simultaneously gritty and soft, sort of like squishy sand, but it felt good going down; warm enough to soothe the ache in his throat, and rough enough to ease its scratchiness.

"It's perfect," he said. "I didn't know you cooked."

"Yeah, sometimes," Ronnie replied with a shrug. "Polenta's easy. Sicilian classic cure-all."

"I didn't know you were Italian," Cameron replied.

"Yeah, half," Ronnie said. Cameron wanted to say something about how he didn't know Ronnie was et cetera, thus starting a new game where he'd alert Ronnie of every time he learned a new Ronnie fact, but Gina unknowingly took advantage of Cameron's morning-slow reflexes and went on ahead into the conversation herself.

"People at school used to call him Ronnie Ciao," she added.

"Ronnie…" Cameron tested the nickname, his mind slow to figure it out. "Oh. Ciao like Chao. Your last name. That's…"

"They thought they were being clever." Ronnie shrugged. "Anyway, uh."

He seemed to want to drop it, so Cameron cut in. 

"Thanks for letting me stay here last night," he said. "Your, um, apartment is really nice."

"Thank you!" Gina said. "It didn't come from Ronnie's _stipend_ money, that's for sure."

"I did try to take you to your place first. You woke up pretty easy in the car," Ronnie recalled. "But you had some trouble giving me your address. First you told me you lived in the woods, then you gave me the address to a CVS in Cardozo, then a CVS in Dupont, and then a _Walgreens_ in Dupont, which, like, do you have all of those memorized?"

"Yeah," Cameron said. He wondered if the drugstores had been calling him because his throat had already started hurting at that point, or if he'd plainly felt the pull to visit one. There was plenty to be seen in the greeting card aisle.

"Yeah," Ronnie echoed, laughing a little. "I… Anyway. I just thought it was getting too complicated, and you live pretty close to downtown, so I just took you to—"

"We're _downtown_ right now?" Cameron interrupted.

"Oh yeah! We keep the blinds closed in the morning because this window faces east, but…" Gina stood up and whirled around to draw the thick, golden curtains on the window that the couch was facing. "Check out the view. You can't see the Capitol or anything, but this street's loaded with trees."

Through squinted and sleep-dried eyes, most of what Cameron saw were, indeed, tree branches, all skeletal and barren for the season and dusted with snow. He was sure it must have looked beautifully green in the spring and summer, but if he said something like that, it'd come off as him dissing their January view, which, well, it still looked amazing. The branches framed tops of townhouses and old historical buildings, signaling that the apartment almost definitely a unit in a high-rise.

Before he could stop himself, Cameron asked, "This place must cost you thousands every month, right?" He knew it was supposed to be gauche to talk about money, but he and Ronnie did the same job, so he figured it wouldn't come off that offensive, and he could backpedal if it did.

Gina shook her head, but she didn't sit back down. "My dad owns the place," she said, like it was no big deal. "And family's family, so we weren't gonna have Ronnie livin' on peanuts while he studied all about dinosaur bones and whatever."

"That's not even close to what I do," Ronnie said dryly. It looked like he was bristling again.

"Which is why I said 'whatever'. You know I don't know about that stuff, Ronnie."

"That's!" Cameron's voice cracked, and he had to clear his throat before he could fully interject. "Sorry, um, that's really. Hmm. I should have thought of something to say before I tried to break up the quarrel. Sorry. That's on me."

"It's on us for _quarreling_ in front of a guest," Ronnie said.

Gina laughed and asked, "You want coffee, baby face? How d'you take it?"

"That nickname sucks, Gina."

"Just black is fine," Cameron said as he shoved aside underneath the coolest blanket he'd ever met. The room wasn't particularly warm and the fabric of his shirt was too breathable for winter, but there was something a little too vulnerable about hanging out with too much of your body under a blanket while in the company of the blanketless. "But could you, like, steep a bag of black tea in there also?"

Gina laughed again. "You serious?"

"If you can make it happen."

"Ronnie, this guy's a card."

Ronnie smiled and looked at the floor before making eye contact with Cameron.

"That bad, huh?" he asked, probably referring to the caffeine. "How's your hangover?"

"I don't have one," Cameron admitted, sounding as surprised as he could manage. The past few minutes had given him enough time to get used to the idea that he'd missed out on a crucial component of a drunken night out, and made his peace with it by reminding himself that a hangover was considered universally unpleasant and he probably would have hated it just like everybody else did.

"You sure?" Ronnie spoke to Cameron with a combination of amusement and concern. "Your voice sounds a little…"

"That's just from waking up," Cameron brushed off. He didn't want to jinx anything by telling Ronnie that he might be getting sick, only to show up to his space in the library two days later all fresh-faced and completely healthy with a brand new reputation for crying wolf. A sore throat wasn't a guaranteed omen, anyway, especially considering that he'd been talking ears off left and right the night before.

He cleared his throat again for good measure, hoping it would solve his problem. It certainly did not.

Gina returned to the living room just a moment later, declaring, "Soup's on, honey!" as she stepped onto the dark plush rug by the couch and handed a sleek glass mug to Cameron. "Here's your double-caf. You got big plans later, or something?"

The coffee tasted like gold; perfectly hot and a little earthy from the tea, which hadn't fully steeped yet. The steam made his cheeks and nose feel like they were at a spa.

"Uh…" Cameron said, then took another sip. "Oh my god, this is so good. Um, I don't know. Drink more coffee. Probably go back to sleep. How about you guys?"

"I was wondering because people usually like to chill the day after getting hammered," Gina clarified, "instead of stimming out. But it's sweet of you to ask. We've got plenty to keep us busy tonight."

"I promise I won't keep you too much longer, then," Cameron said. His next sip was a lot bigger — possibly even too big to be categorized as a sip — and he winced as he was reminded that hot liquid was a lot hotter going down in bigger quantities. "Do you remember where I put my keys last night…?" 

Gina beamed at that, but Ronnie answered the question.

"I left them on the counter next to the, uh, grant prizes that you took."

"That I _earned_ ," Cameron corrected.

"It was so funny," Gina said. "You and Ronnie came in at midnight soundin' all normal, so I thought you guys were just hanging out. He had to tell me you were drunk, since you weren't slurring or falling over." She clapped Ronnie on the shoulder. "You kept calling my cousin _Geronimo_. No one calls him that!"

"Oh my god," Cameron said. For someone who sometimes slurred his words or stammered or spoke too quickly while sober, he was surprised at how articulate everyone said the drunk version of himself had been. Maybe there was something to not overthinking every last word he spoke. "Uh, god. Sorry if I was a handful."

"Nah, you were a blast," Ronnie assured him. For a fleeting moment, Cameron wished he knew how to counterfeit money so he could get his hands on more million-billion-dollar wine and try the whole thing over again. "Not like any drunk person I've ever seen, though."

As the coffee jump-started his foggy nervous system, or however that worked, Cameron wondered what it was about alcohol specifically that got to him in such a sparse and strange way. Researching the subject always lead him to articles comparing alcohol addiction to the call of a Siren, saying that it was similarly tempting and dangerous. He was starting to wonder if having that kind of power inside of him might have been what made him impervious to it coming from other sources.

"Or like any you'll ever see again," Cameron figured. As much as he'd relished the relaxed push for expression and all of the effects that came with it, he decided to consider the embezzled grants his real win of the night and quit while he was ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cameron when he realizes he doesnt have a hangover: :/ life is hard


End file.
